If you have not subscribed to Graph Jam yet I suggest you stop reading this post immediately, and head over there straight away. Graph Jam, a collection of normally amusing and occasionally devastatingly funny graphical interpretations of some of life's little struggles, usually provided a few moments of amusement to help you get through the day.
A few days ago, Graph Jam had a killer graph about online support forums, one that could be more broadly applied to any online community that organizations could create to further their objectives for candidate engagement, brand building, constituent outreach, or whatever. So first off, take a look at the graph and see if it resonates:
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A biting and kind of true to life observation about many of the purported 'communities' that exist online today, be they for customer support or designed for other purposes. Communities, forums, fan pages, LinkedIn groups - it doesn't really matter what the platform is or the type of technology that underpins the community, if the exchanges of information and value become completely one sided, then you really don't have a real community by any definition. You have something, it just probably isn't something you envisioned when you set out down the path of crowdsourcing, community engagement, or whatever cool and trendy descriptors you attached to the effort.
I think the lesson here is more about commitment. If you create an environment, invite stakeholders of any sort to the party, and expect it to develop into a wondrous kumbayah Kool-Aid drinking festival of fun and value creation; you'd better be prepared to do the hard and time-consuming work of ensuring that the value creation and consumption is a little more equal than in the amusing pie chart depicted on Graph Jam.
Community as a term is flying around fast and furious these days. It probably is a good idea to check on yours to make sure it actually is a community, and not a 'I have the same issue too', bulletin board. Or even worse, a mailing list or contact database that you've just re-branded as a 'community.'